The indoctrination that white men excelled at stealing land from unwary Indians is so embossed upon the American mindset that people are apt to forget some parcels were peacefully transferred by and among Barnstable Village colonists and Indians as solemn matters of up-front business.

An early example signed in 1683 between the Indian Ollinow and a member of the Bourne family of Sandwich shows the colonist paid $4 in pounds -- in usual New England currency -- which at the time was the English pound.

The size of the parcel cannot be determined by the deed, says archivist Steve Farrar because the parcels were more often than not described as the "big elm on Farmer Brown's property, to the bend in the creek, to the rock along the path" and such other markers long since gone.

There were other, less legendary deals besides the Manhattan rip-off and, locally, the sale of Cotuit for a kettle and hoe -- now the name of a village eatery.

The point is made in such places as the Barnstable Historical Society's repository of historic documents at the Daniel Davis House Museum on Route 6A in Barnstable Village, the society's headquarters. There, professional archivist and librarian Farrar of Marstons Mills is busy these days putting upwards of 50,000 individual pieces of historical paraphernalia -- documents, unpublished letters, postcards, daybooks, photographs, diaries and manuscripts dating as far back as the 17th century -- in sensible and easily accessible order for posterity and unfettered access for researchers in general.

The 1739 Davis house, a somewhat musty relic with bouncy wide-pine floorboards indigenous to post and beam Georgian architecture and early construction materials, and its dated furnishings and collections, is a goldmine of antiquity. There, one can, with minimal imagination, relive the humdrum and/or excitement of ancestral endeavors merely by browsing through the myriad collections housed in a Colonial environment.

Farrar, seated at a second floor table hemmed in by stacked boxes of documents, is a man who loves his work and is well suited for it. "I don't know why, but I have this capacity to organize," he said. He points to a box and confidently predicts that, "You could empty that box (that he has already catalogued) on the floor in a pile and I could put it all back together very quickly."

For the uninitiated, the archivist's task is to establish, maintain and preserve physical and intellectual control over records of enduring value -- some more enduring than others. For example, said Rob Stewart, the museum's assistant curator,

"Some of our more valuable collections are kept in a vault" that is located elsewhere.

Farrar is toiling over a collection of documents at the moment that includes a 1717 land transfer deed signed by members of the Bourne family and an Indian couple who made their mark on the parchment -- one a wiggly line representing a snake, and the other a semi-circular flourish representing a half-moon.

"The British," said Farrar, who is, along with Stewart, a trove of historical anecdotes, "wanted to assure that land purchases were legal, deeded and paid for." He said the Crown didn't want trouble with the Indians and didn't want colonists to move west because the Motherland wanted it preserved for the indigenous inhabitants. (But then came the Revolution, and changes in attitude.)

Farrar's work, which includes preserving the documents as well as arranging them logically for ready access by genealogists and general researchers such as authors, students of history and the simply curious, is funded by a $15,000 grant recommended by the town's Community Preservation Committee and approved by the Town Council.

he project involves the historical society's permanent collections from the town's seven villages and is aptly titled "Barnstable's rich heritage: A preservation and access project."

Stewart, a resident of Barnstable village, is a veteran society member and current assistant curator. "The collections are a prime asset and the continuance of the project is of utmost importance," he said. "We are very excited about being able to share this collection with local students, town residents, authors and researchers interested in the history of Barnstable. Our rich photographic holdings are especially compelling, as they document the growth of Barnstable through the centuries."

The Davis House, in addition to being a depository for the eclectic compilation of documents and photos, also represents home life in the 18th Century via period clothing, paintings, chinaware, scrimshaw, tools of the day, seafaring lore, furniture, ship models and even a most colorful butterfly collection from around the world accumulated by a sea captain. The museum at 3074 Main St. in Barnstable village, next to the Sturgis Library, is open from 1 to 4 p.m. through mid-October.

Farrar started out as a librarian and moved on to two graduate degrees in becoming a professional archivist, somewhat "arcane and academic" endeavors, he said, but also good choices for someone with a love of history.

He has worked in various Cape towns, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Mass Eye and Ear and has a strong command of his profession (explaining in detail how documents are preserved from acid contained in some papers) and the variations of humidity and temperature and how electronics may be changing preservation of and research into old documents.

Farrar says Barnstable Town Clerk Linda Hutchenrider received a grant from the Community Preservation Act to digitize vital records. "You scan them into an electronic file that can be made available on the Worldwide Web for research," he said. "The Barnstable Historical Society will do the same, apply for funds after this phase, to digitize the collections."

Farrar said the society's collection of old photos is "extremely special because they document life here 150 years ago -- when the first camera technology became available."

Early papers weren't acid free, Farrar says, and the archivist's job is to remove paper clips, rubber or other bands, anything that will help the migration of acid, from, for example, a rusted paper clip that will eat away the document. Most of those papers, in the absence of more sophisticated preservation aids such temperature-controlled rooms, are kept in Mylar covers to protect photos, in particular, from humidity that ruins the emulsion on the paper and degrades it.

Of the thousands of documents, Farrar said, "This is history from the bottom up. It isn't pre-digested." In modern terms, they lack the spin of possibly biased historians.